The Challenge
One of the largest hospitals in the state of Florida, Tampa General Hospital (TGH) has been consistently recognized for excellent care and is the region’s only academic health system. The TGH Foundation exists to inspire philanthropic support to help fuel the mission of TGH, which is to become the safest and most innovative academic health system in America. Currently, the Foundation is engaged in a $200 million, six-year comprehensive campaign, Elevating Excellence: Innovating Tomorrows TGH. The campaign will end in 2027 and coincide with the 100th anniversary of the hospital.
The advancement team knew that fundraising needs existed that were important but didn’t map neatly into institutional goals. “As we’re focusing on big strategic fundraising goals, we still need toys for pediatrics and we still need clothes to give to people in trauma events,” said Jocelyn Koenig, associate vice president for advancement services. These smaller-scale fundraising campaigns were being conducted but often without the ability to streamline or centralize the efforts.
“I love how user-friendly and customizable ScaleFunder is. The platform allows us to tell stories through personal photos, write ups, gift amounts and more, really making every fundraising campaign unique.”
The Solution
To assist in their fundraising efforts, TGH turned to ScaleFunder. “ScaleFunder really gave us that opportunity to set up specific asks and campaigns for some of those things that are just as important and critical to our mission, but maybe outside of the scope of the priority fundraising goals,” said Koenig. The team has been able to set up campaigns through ScaleFunder and leverage the crowdfunding nature of the platform to get the word out to the rest of the hospital and the larger community, via everything from peer-to-peer sharing to social media to QR codes at events and on mailers, all from one central location.
The platform also enables the advancement team to assist with fundraising requests that they may not have had the bandwidth to work on previously. “We’re a huge health system…we want to help everybody fundraise, but we just don’t have the manpower to do that,” Koenig said. “And so now instead of saying ‘I’m sorry, we can’t help your department with that’, what we can say is ‘What we can do is set up a ScaleFunder for you,’ and really empower our internal stakeholders to take on some of that.”
The Results
FY 2024
- 480 unique gifts
- 23 different TGH funds supported
- 37 unique ScaleFunder campaigns
- Over $76,000 raised
FY 2025
- 1,033 unique gifts – increase of 46.4%
- 32 different TGHF funds supported – increase of 71.8%
- Over $165,000 raised – increase of 46%
The numbers clearly show the success that the TGH Foundation has had using ScaleFunder, success that has benefitted many different areas of the organization. Some of the specific campaigns highlighted were the #TGHMovement4Moms campaign, aimed at support for the TGH Women’s Institute; the McNichols Team Member Assistance Program, which was set up to assist TGH team members who had been impacted by hurricanes Helene and Milton; and multiple campaigns to support the Child Life Fund, which includes initiatives such as Operation Santa, Christmas in July and birthday campaigns for children being treated at the Muma Children’s Hospital at TGH.
ScaleFunder has also assisted the advancement team in working towards larger strategic fundraising goals. “The ScaleFunder platform has been integral in helping with pipeline development and identifying potential major gift donors,” said Christina Stevens, director of annual giving at TGH. “As we continue build our annual giving program, we are becoming more strategic with analyzing the ScaleFunder data and utilizing it to identify donors who may want to become more engaged with us.”
ScaleFunder has also been instrumental in increasing the net new donor count for the foundation. Between FY 2024 and FY 2025, TGH saw its net new donor count jump from 682 to 1,016 – an almost 50% increase. And the team is looking forward to building on this success. “We really want to continue growing,” said Stevens. “A lot of our success in increasing our net new donor count has come from peer-to-peer campaigns, where current donors and board members share ScaleFunder campaigns with their networks. This strategy has been essential for engaging new supporters we might not have reached otherwise, and ScaleFunder has made it easy for our partners to amplify our mission.”
“We got a $10,000 gift from somebody that saw a ScaleFunder campaign on social media. It just goes to show you how powerful social media is in the age of digital fundraising, and how impactful this peer-to-peer approach can be.”